Brown University Corporation minutes and reports (OF.1B.1)

The authority and responsibilities of the Corporation, a bicameral body composed of a Board of Fellows with twelve members and a Board of Trustees with forty-two, are set forth in the Charter of the University granted by the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1764. "It is our fixed star; we can do nothing that contradicts its prohibitions or transgresses its grants of power," states Henry Wriston in The Structure of Brown University.

The Charter originally provided for a twelve-member Board of Fellows and a Board of Trustees of thirty-six1. It provided further that eight of the Fellows should always be Baptists and the rest "indifferently of any or all denominations." The President was always to be a Fellow and always a Baptist. Of the thirty-six Trustees, the Charter provided that twenty-two should be Baptists, five Quakers, four Congregationalists, and five Episcopalians.

In 1926 the Charter was amended to provide for six additional Trustees, bringing the Board of Trustees to its present number of forty-two. These six were to be elected "without regard to denominational or religious affiliations." At the same time the qualification that the President must be a Baptist was removed. In 1942 a further amendment to the Charter removed all denominational qualifications for service on the Corporation.

Of the 42 trustees, 14 are elected by alumni pursuant to an agreement between the Corporation and the Alumni Association. These 14 trustees include the current and two past Brown Alumni Association chairs, and eleven others elected to six year terms. The rest of the Trustees, called Term Trustees, are nominated by the Committee on Trustee Vacancies. Careful selection of internally appointed trustees and those elected through the alumni ensures that Corporation members have the professional and personal backgrounds needed to meet their fiduciary and oversight responsibilities.